map, like a work of art, begins from a particular location – spatial, linguistic or conceptual. It is a tool for measuring and, therefore, exploring unfamiliar terrain. Throughout history, maps have been used to mark homes, neighbourhoods, regions, the known world, the imagined universe and probable realities. Archaeological evidence suggests that humans have been making maps for millennia. Among the earliest examples is the Bedolina petroglyph (c1500 BCE), a carved stone whose engraved lines appear to depict a cluster of houses. It was followed centuries later by the Babylonian World Map (c750-500 BCE), incised on a clay tablet, which portrays a mysterious and unsettling territory beyond the circular world of Babylon.

Whether drawn by medieval travellers, Arab merchants, Ottoman sailors or European explorers, maps have long reflected an individual’s understanding of the world. Rome, Cordoba, Jerusalem, Mecca – even Paradise – have served as centres from which the world is imagined, not unlike the red location pin that marks a user’s starting point on digital maps. Maps do more than describe physical space. They reveal systems of thought and trace histories that shape a community’s relationship with others, exposing ideas of power, prestige and possession.

Rulers have long relied on maps to facilitate conquest, a practice adopted particularly by colonial powers that produced detailed cartographies of the territories they occupied. Beyond defining land, maps also record voyages, wars, strategies and ambitions. They may appear objective, but they are invariably shaped by the assumptions and prejudices of those who make and use them. Atlases, in whatever form they take, do more than chart territory; they also carry the imprint of power.

Furqaan Ahmed has spent years acquiring archival material, including maps, photographs, posters, official documents, old books, discarded Urdu and English magazines, newspaper clippings and works of art, in an effort to preserve a past that is rapidly disappearing. His passion for collecting, which has perhaps become an obsession, reflects one man’s attempt to document the collective history of a people living with a persistent cultural amnesia.

Many collectors in Pakistan, for a variety of reasons – security perhaps foremost among those – are reluctant to share their collections with the public. Most of their holdings remain in storage, with only a small selection displayed in private homes and accessible to a limited audience. Furqaan Ahmed has taken a different approach. Through The Furqaan Ahmed Collection, he has brought a small part of his vast archive into the public domain with exhibitions at Canvas Gallery and Koel Gallery. Running from June 2 to June 20, the two exhibitions explored how Karachi had been seen across different periods and perspectives.

Early plans of the city, dating from the late 1910s, were displayed alongside contemporary artworks, revealing the many layers of the ever-expanding metropolis. They were accompanied by facsimiles of newspapers, advertisements, family photographs and press images, as well as municipal documents approving land leases and water connections; and ration books issued by Karachi Civil Supplies between 1960 and 1963. The displays also includes correspondence and photographs of significant public figures, preserved in sepia and monochrome, their faded tones quietly recalling lives long past.

Maps do more than describe physical space. They reveal systems of thought and trace histories that shape a community’s relationship with others.

The archival material has been brought together in a publication that traces both the history of Karachi and its continuing resonance. In her essay Dreams, Desires and Fears: Karachi as Artistic Imagination and Representation, Zarmeene Shah notes that the city was referred to as “Kharachi” in “Pahlavi texts from 230 BC.” It reappeared in the 12th-Century Sindhi legend of Moriro Mirbahar as “Kalachi,” and later in the writings of the 15th-Century Arab navigator Ibn Majid, who while describing its port, called it “Kalazi.” By the late 1720s, under Sindh’s Talpur dynasty, Shah writes, it had become known as Kolachi.

The changing names reflect the city’s evolving identity. Pakistan’s first capital has grown from a population of about 450,000 in 1947 to more than 20 million today. Migrants from Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere in the subcontinent, alongside people from across Pakistan and later Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, have all contributed to its character. The city became a place of arrival, shaped by successive waves of migration.

I encountered this diversity on my first visit in 1992. Walking along Drigh Road with a friend, we stopped at a roadside dhaba. My first impression on entering was that I had stumbled into a UN cafeteria: a Chinese man, a European, an African, a Sri Lankan and a North Indian appeared to be sharing a meal. Only later did I realise they were a Hazara, a Pashtun, a Sheedi (Makrani), a Muhajir of Madrasi origin and a Punjabi. Such layers of migration have made Karachi the world’s largest Pashtun city, surpassing both Peshawar and Kabul.

Art, too, is a way of translating ideas into form; observation into commentary; the visual into memory; and collections into acts of recollection. The two exhibitions and the accompanying catalogue bring together the work of contemporary artists from Karachi, each approaching the city through a different lens. Some draw on the colonial past or the decades following 1947; others explore densely populated neighbourhoods or the coastline where the city meets the Arabian Sea. Some reflect on the transformations that followed 9/11 and the wave of violence that reshaped the city; others trace family histories across places, ethnicities and migrations. Together, the works capture fleeting moments, interconnected neighbourhoods and the materials and techniques through which women map the city in their own ways.

These varied portraits of Karachi are brought together in the substantial catalogue Karachi Cartographies: Seeing the City Through Art and Archives. Published in a limited edition of 200 copies, it includes a foreword by Furqaan Ahmed and two substantial essays by Zarmeene Shah and Marvi Mazhar examining the city’s changing psyche, social structures, popular culture, architectural legacy, colonial history and urban planning. Works by Seema Nusrat, Arif Mahmood, Jovita Alvares, Minahil Khurram, Asma Mundrawala, Shakil Adil, Saad Choudhry, Roohi Ahmed, Navid Siddiqui, Yaminy Chaudhri and several other artists have been reproduced.

The book is an ambitious and distinctive undertaking, offering a comprehensive understanding rather than simply information about the city. In 1947, Karachi was home to a population that was 51 percent Hindu and 42 percent Muslim, with the remainder comprising Christians, Zoroastrians and a small Jewish community, many of whom later migrated to Israel, leaving behind the city’s Jewish cemetery.

Meticulously researched and beautifully produced, the book opens with a quotation from Roohi Ahmed, “To its inhabitants, Karachi often appears to be a paradox. The fabric of the city is a complex weave of overlapping spheres that engulf us from all sides, yet there is so much beneath the surface that we neither see nor comprehend.”

The writer is a visual artist, an art critic, a curator and a professor at the School of Visual Arts and Design, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He can
be contacted at [email protected].